Mentally Ill Woman Rescued From Cage

Her Family Is Loving And Was Doing What It Thought Best For Her, Her Mother's Lawyer Says.

November 7, 1993|By San Jose Mercury News

SAN JOSE, CALIF. — Nobody quite knows when the screaming or pounding began, only that the woman's incessant howling often went on through the night.

Neighbors thought her family odd with all the strange happenings at the rundown San Jose home, but no one suspected what the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department would discover.

The woman lived in an outdoor cage.

In the small barren shed wired shut, the 30-year-old schizophrenic slept on a wooden pallet and ate, urinated and defecated on the concrete floor.

''I thought it was a wild animal,'' said neighbor Cindy Amaral of the constant screaming that often kept her up at night.

Next month, the woman's father, mother, two brothers and sister - each free on $10,000 bail - will enter pleas in San Jose Municipal Court to charges of false imprisonment and inflicting pain and suffering on a dependent adult.

But more than two months after their arrest, the former University of California-Berkeley student's incarceration still astounds even the most stoic.

At a recent court hearing, Judge Lawrence Terry was outraged over her condition. He and others who have learned of the case question how the mentally ill woman could have had such a tragic life undetected by agencies meant to protect her.

The agencies were not legally responsible to do so - not Santa Clara County's Mental Health Services or the Public Guardian's Office, which took custody of the woman in 1988 and then released her to her parents after a few months. Although neighbors say the sheriff's department had been called to the home over the years, it has no records of this.

Much of what happened before 1988 and after remains a mystery because her psychiatric and personal records are confidential.

''There are big gaps here. What happened?'' said Deputy District Attorney Cynthia Sevely.

''I don't understand why this woman was not conserved, why was she living in an outdoor cage and how could her father have allowed this to happen?'' Sevely said.

The woman's 56-year-old father, Tu Van Bui, receives $541 monthly in Supplemental Security Income payments to care for her. He has not lived at the house for two years.

Tu, who is divorced from the woman's mother, moved to this country from Vietnam in 1975. His lawyer, Richard Pointer, says Tu can account for all of the money and had no idea his daughter had been locked in a cage.

Judge Terry recently appointed a lawyer for the woman, now in a private San Jose board and care home and undergoing psychiatric rehabilitation treatment.

''She said she was happy there,'' said Sevely, who visited the woman recently. ''She said she didn't like living in the wooden cage.'' Sevely described her as a nice-looking, unemotional woman who mostly answered ''yes and no'' when questioned.

Authorities learned of the situation after neighbors reported the screaming and pounding. What they found Aug. 29 shocked even veterans of the force.

As deputies made their way to the back yard, they found cooked chicken on the sidewalk and trash and mattresses scattered about the grass. Toward the back of the house was the cage, which smelled of urine and was infested with flies.

Her family claims she was kept there for her protection because she would often wander off, break windows and furniture and remove her clothing.

''One minute she would be fine, and the next minute she would go crazy,'' her brother, Danny, 27, a recent San Jose State University graduate, told deputies.

She was only placed inside the cage at night, her family claims. During the day she was allowed out in the back yard, where she also ate some of her meals, said her sister, Linda Bui, 22, who attends San Jose State along with her brother, Henry, 25. ''We only keep her back there so that she will not run away and hurt herself,'' Bui told investigators.

The woman's mother, An Thi Nguyen, 55, who also suffers from schizophrenia, told authorities that her daughter had been in the cage for only a week while her room inside the house was being fixed. But deputies said there were no signs that the room had been lived in or that is was being repaired.

According to lawyers for the family, the woman has schizophrenia and often refuses to take her medication - triggering violent, destructive outbursts that required the family to lock her up. ''She was completely out of control,'' Pointer said.

She began showing signs of schizophrenia while studying at Berkeley, where she was on scholarship. ''She was a brilliant student,'' Pointer said.

She was first hospitalized in 1985. A few years later she tried to go back to school, but her schizophrenia worsened. She quit school, and the Santa Clara County Public Guardian's Office took custody of her in 1988.

Although officials representing the Public Guardian's Office would not comment on her case because of confidentiality laws, they say a conservatorship is lifted when a patient is no longer determined to be gravely disabled and is capable of functioning with the help of a responsible third party - either family, friends or a private noncounty agency. Unless allegations of abuse are raised, the county does not remain involved in the case.

''I know it's hard to believe when you see conditions like that,'' said Ben Koller, lawyer for the mother, ''but they are a loving family and they thought what they were doing was the best for her.''